OFFICIAL BLOG of the Star Wars Collectors ArchiveCelebrating 25 years of bridging geographical and generational gaps between collectors in fun, educational, and accessible ways.

Sunday, February 18, 2018

Star Wars Community Digest Issue #2

Tommy and Yehuda write:

As always, the Star Wars Community Digest is your place to get summaries about what's going on in the Star Wars collecting community across all of the Facebook groups and forums (well... those which want to be a part of this series of articles, anyway). Please be aware that many of these are closed Facebook groups, which
means you will need to join them in order to read the conversations.

If you would like your community to be a part of this feature, please let us know. We are always happy to include additional groups/forums in our summaries, but be aware that not every group can be featured every week.

In any case, lets get right down to it and get everyone caught up to date on what they may have missed last week...

Collector Bob Martinazzi Passes Away

Bob Martinazzi

Luke Jedi focus collector and friend of the Star Wars Collectors Archive, Bob Martinazzi, passed away early last week. As such, a lot of threads and conversation were dedicated to memories of Bob and the impact he had on the hobby.

His friends and family have the deepest condolences of the entire Star Wars Collectors Archive editorial staff. This hobby and this world are a darker place without him. He will be missed.

The Display Group Gives Away a Bunch of Awesome Store Displays

The Star Wars Displays and Advertising Group gave away a bunch of awesome displays.

It's not every day that a group gives away a couple thousand dollars worth of collectibles, but that's just what the Star Wars Displays and Advertising Group did last week. The rules of the contest were simple: reply to the thread with a picture of a display or advertising item in your collection and you'd be entered. Then 7 random winners were chosen, and they won some surprisingly awesome stuff! Will Grief did not skimp on the prizes, that's for sure. The full thread can be found here:Store Display Giveaway Thread

A Set of 3-Packs is Showcased in the IC

Well, there's something you don't see every day.

David DeMarchis casually posted this image to The Imperial Commissary Group last week, showcasing his complete collection of 3-packs, as well as a variety of other vintage multi-pack rarities. There's really not much else I can say about this image, so I'll let it speak for itself.

Buried Treasure from the Palitoy Factory in Leicestershire

Companies
are often left with an odd dilemma when they produce more product than
the market demands. The company has to decide if it is more cost
efficient to liquidate the remaining merchandise or to toss it.

Toy companies have often sent their unwanted overstock to landfills for dumping. This has caused the occasional fearless collector to embark on a stomach turning archeological dig.

It
may seem to be an impossible task to dig up any vintage toys from a
landfill and have them be recognizable and in condition to be
collectible.

But it has happened before. In
April of 2014, video game collectors went on a pilgrimage in New Mexico
to a landfill. It had long been rumored that the Atari company dumped
nearly one million copies of a rare video game cartridge featuring E.T.

The collectors were able to locate and unearth collectible quality examples with a unique allure (and smell). A recent thread in the Jabba's Court Vintage Star Wars Collectors Group discusses the issue. It
has been reported from multiple sources that the Palitoy company, who
was the manufacturer of the vintage Star Wars action figures in the
United Kingdom, dumped their overstock regularly in a landfill in
Leicestershire.

First Images of a Bootleg Store Display for ‘70s Puffy Psychedelic Magnets

So puffy...so psychedelic...so bootleg.

A
previously undescribed and unlicensed counter top store display was
recently discovered in a find highlighted in the Star Wars Displays and Advertising and Star Wars Bootlegs and Knockoff Collectors groups. The display features puffy vinyl Star Wars themed
magnets with groovy stylings. The set includes multicolored versions of
the X-Wing Fighter, R2-D2 and in the bootleg tradition, unrelated
characters including Ming the Merciless.

Questions Continue about the Bucket Coin Find

The continuing saga of the Bucket Find.

As you might recall from our last issue, there was a find of Power of the Force coins, among which were a lot of rarities. The coins weren't in the best condition though, showing a variety of damage and some were even spray-painted silver. The thinking the week before last was that the find was good and the coins were legitimate. Last week, however, there were growing concerns about the find and whether or not the coins are all authentic. The Star Wars: POTF (Last 17) Vintage Collecting Group discussed a recent auction for a Darth Vader coin from the find, which was won by a member there and then closely examined. He shares his findings with the group, which seem to call the entire find into question.

Engineering Pilot 3-Pack in GDE

3-Pack Engineering Pilot

Collector Christopher Caswell posted pictures in the La Guerre des Etoiles Group of an amazing item in his collection: an engineering pilot of the ESB Rebel Set 3-pack. Owning a 3-pack is a tough enough task and they're grails for most collectors, but to own a pre-production sample of one? That's even more impressive!

A Collector Rediscovers the Diverse Vintage Keshigomu Figures from Japan

As
the Star Wars mythology permeated the international social fabric in
the late 1970s, the characters from the film were rapidly turned into
collectibles by many toy manufacturers. Japan,
which is known for its unique and imaginative toy lines, had just been
introduced to a very successful new type of toy collectible.

Keshi (or Keshigomu) translates to rubber or eraser. They are small
unarticulated rubber figures depicting characters from popular themes.

Hundreds
of different Star Wars-themed Keshis exist in multiple colors and
several scales. Two of the largest Keshigomu manufacturers in Japan were
Takara and Maruka (many American children of the 1980s may remember
the M.U.S.C.L.E. type of Keshi figures released by Bandai).

Rebelscum Shares Its Most Emotional Moments

The magical moments of collecting Star Wars stuff.

Sometimes as collectors we get so preoccupied with getting the next great piece or tracking down some lost grail, that we forget to cherish all of the cool moments we've had in this hobby. The vintage section of the Rebelscum Forum had a thread last week which invited collectors to share those "magical moments" which make collecting so much fun.

Our Star Wars Community Digest Time Capsule Thread for this Issue:

The list of proofs available for after-hours trading at C2...

Take a moment to process this picture. The article can wait...

There are a few seminal moments in the vintage collecting hobby: The Earth Toy Mall hardcopy find, the 1993 Las Vegas Store Display Auction, the Men Behind the Masks tour (one of the first times collectors from across the country met up in person), etc. Moments in time which are known and talked about by collectors who weren't even there to see them. The Celebration II Proof Sale was one of those occasions.

Basically, a collector decided to sell his proof cards at a room sale during Celebration II in 2002. While that might not seem especially memorable, the collector in question was Steve Denny and his collection of proofs was a significant percentage of the total number of vintage Star Wars proof cards in the world!